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WALKERTON - Gregg Sciarra had prepared his team for a night like this.
Here it was, the first game of the season for his Tippecanoe Valley basketball team. And already, here in the first quarter, he had to scrap his team's defensive game plan.
When John Glenn jumped ahead 24-11, Sciarra knew it was time for a change. He called off the full-court press, the defense he hopes becomes Valley's bread and butter defense.
The Vikings went to a halfcourt defense the last three quarters.
By changing their defense, the Vikings changed the outcome of the game. They won their Saturday season opener at John Glenn, thanks to a late 18-1 run, 65-53.
"We talked about this earlier this week," Sciarra said. "We want to be able to keep full-court pressing people. There's going to be times it's not going to work. It might be the first game. It might be five games in a row. But sometime, we're going to be able to get some things off of it.
"We kept with it for a while. They kept burning us, and we kept making mistakes. When we did eventually go to a half-court game, we tried to keep the tempo up in the half-court set. It worked."
Worked, indeed.
After scoring 24 points the first quarter, Glenn (0-1) scored 29 in the last three quarters combined. Valley (1-0) outscored Glenn 49-29 in those quarters.
With 3:15 left in the third quarter, Glenn hit its last field goal until just 2:27 remained in the game. Nearly nine minutes without a field goal.
When Glenn's drought began, the Falcons led 43-42.
When it ended, the Vikings led 60-44. An 18-1 run.
"We got into a flow offensively; we got into a flow defensively," Sciarra said. "Our half-court defense was better. We hit one of those runs, and it was a big one."
Glenn had only two returners who had seen a lot of varsity time last year, point guard Jake Neiswender and forward Corey Rough. Neiswender scored 12, but nine of those came in the first quarter. He hit only 4 of 18 shots from the field, 1 of 11 after the first quarter.
Rough scored 21, but 14 of his came in the first half.
"We were concerned with Neiswender and Rough," Sciarra said. "Rough hurt us. Neiswender was in the doghouse, I believe. It looked like he was wanting to do a little too much one-on-one.
"We shut off those two guys, in a way, and that was a big part of it."
Forward Jeff Brown led Valley with 17 points, and forward/center JayDee Parker added 15 off the bench. They were also Valley's top two rebounders, as Brown had nine and Parker eight.
Point guard Darren Parker paced Valley with three steals, and two led to big baskets.
His steal with time running out in the first half led set up a JayDee Parker three-pointer with two seconds left. Instead of possibly trailing 36-28, the Vikings went to their locker room trailing 34-31.
With four seconds left in the third quarter, another Darren Parker steal led to an Aaron Hart basket right before the buzzer, giving Valley a 10-point cushion at 54-44 to enter the fourth.
Sciarra left this game pleased with the mental toughness his veteran team showed.
"We talked about not losing our cool, keeping our composure and getting back into it," Sciarra said. "It (the deficit) got to be 13 points. We figured we would chip away, not try to hit home runs or any of that. Move it to a halfcourt defensive game, work harder there.
"It gradually came to us. We were pleased with the way they fought back."
Valley (1-0) is at Warsaw Wednesday.
